


We'll Always Have Yesterday

by starsmckirk



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, M/M, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Starfleet Academy, narada - Freeform, post STID, shuttle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2013-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-01 18:03:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1046917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsmckirk/pseuds/starsmckirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What Bones and Jim became, Captain and CMO, was a result of those jagged, broken kids from the shuttle finally finding a home in each other"</p><p>This is the story of how two people who thought they were broken beyond repair find each other and heal each other. It's wonderful and beautiful yet sad and tragic because co-dependancy can be a dangerous thing.</p><p>This story stretches from the Academy and all the way to after Into Darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll Always Have Yesterday

The first time they met they were two jagged and broken people. Hell, they were only kids. Leonard may have already been married and divorced and Jim had had more bad things happen to him than any old man could possibly imagine but on that shuttle, next to each other, they were only kids. Lost. Jagged. Broken.

 

Initial contact was soothing, welcoming. None of them realizing that this was what they needed. But it hurt too. The shatters of their broken souls fit together but not without painful ripping and pulling.

 

But slowly both of them healed. They healed together. They grew as one. They became dangerously codependent. It was not long until the only imaginable was lying there together, the San Francisco night outside their dorm window, legs and arms and sheets tangled together. Bones dark hair falling down over his eyes, his own hand in Jim’s lighter hair. The steady rise and fall of Jim’s chest under Bones’ cheek and those warm, wonderful hands embracing Jim, holding him tight.

 

Because Leonard was Bones now. And Jim was the Jim who called Leonard Bones. Together they re-defined themselves. Together they lived the life of Starfleet students, a life so good none of them could ever have imagined before.

 

* * *

 

 

Then came the Narada. Jim’s past catching up with him. Bones knew everything about Jim. And Jim knew everything about Bones. Jim had always longed for the stars. Just as Jim became the Jim who calls Leonard Bones Leonard became Bones who follows Jim into the sky.

 

In space, on the Enterprise, things were different. Jim faced Spock, Nero, and the challenges coming with them away from Bones. Bones worked as he’d never worked before in the sickbay of the ship. But yet they worked as one. Not only had they taught each other valuable things to know when staring into the face of death, they had given each other a reason to never give up, to always keep fighting.

 

They had created their own sphere of trust, of hope, of a reason to keep fighting. Jim never stopped fighting, and in the end he had saved the earth and defeated Nero. Bones never stopped fighting, and in the end he had saved countless patients. What Bones and Jim became, Captain and CMO, was a result of these jagged, broken kids finally finding a home in each other.

 

In the end, it was never saving themselves, it was always saving others.

 

* * *

 

 

Bones and Jim were never loud. Jim was noisy and large. Bones was grumpy and harsh. But Bones and Jim were gentle, soft, quiet. When entangled in each other on the bed in the captain’s quarters, with only the gentle hum of the ship to accompany them they were so quiet. No words needed to be uttered. The way Bones hand stroke through Jim’s hair and the way Jim’s piercing blue yes met the brown warmth of Bones was enough.

 

* * *

 

 

When Christopher Pike died Jim felt the darkness embrace him, he fought hard, he utilized the hope that he and Bones had so carefully built up together to find the light again.

 

Darkness was starting to seep into their world, their quiet, private world of trust that they had so carefully constructed.

 

Yet, with the many cracks and bruises created by the man who called himself John Harrison, a simple touch from Bones was enough to ground Jim. A simple meeting of eyes in a busy hangar was enough for Jim to know that what he and Bones had was unconditional. The unit that was Bones and Jim started working again. Jim needed the hope that Bones had brought in to his world when he faced the enemy, without it he would be lost. Bones needed the life Jim had inflicted on him to keep going, to keep healing, to keep working. Without it he would be lost. Without each other Bones and Jim would not function.

 

* * *

 

When that panel had clamped down over Bones' arm and the seconds ticking down to zero were less and less Jim felt as if the end of the world was here, it was the apocalypse, all hope was lost. He felt his legs weaken, his head buzzing. What Jim and Bones had done created together was amazing and beautiful, and that’s who Jim had become. Someone who does things, but now there was absolutely nothing he could do. He stood there, his whole body absorbed with only the thought of Bones. Trying to absorb as much as he could, trying to make their unit start functioning again. Because this was not supposed to happen. They had worked so hard, never realizing the dangers of being dependent. There was no world where Jim and Bones were separated. It was unimaginable.

 

* * *

 

Except it wasn’t.

 

A person is so much more than their body. Bones knew this, even as a doctor. He knew the anatomy of humans and several other alien races by heart. He knew Jim’s body by heart. How many times had he not gone over it with dermal generators, cleaned its cuts, wrapped up the broken bones, stitched wounds together. How many times had he not run his hands over it, pressed his lips to it, felt it against his own?

 

Yet the thought of Jim’s body without _Jim_ was one that he could not imagine.

 

That is why when the zipper of that body bag zipped open, step by step, slowly unraveling to reveal what was inside, Leonard felt like he died.

 

Those strong legs that so many times had walked beside Leonard. That muscular chest that had always felt so familiar against Leonard’s cheek. Those shoulders that were always strong enough for Leonard to lean on whenever ne needed. Those lips, those wonderful lips that were like home. And those piercing blue eyes, the eyes that meant the world to Leonard.

 

But those eyes were closed now. And those legs, that chest, those shoulders, and those lips meant nothing now for Jim was no longer there.

 

Leonard’s body was numb but inside he felt a pain so painful that there was nothing, nothing in the world that could stop it. The fact that Jim was gone, and that with that Leonard wasn't Bones any more was unbearable. The Jim who called him Bones was gone. And with him Bones was gone too.

 

This man, standing in front the cold, dead, body of Jim Kirk was no one. He was an empty shell. Leonard McCoy had been stranded outside that shuttle in Riverside so many years ago while Bones had left him to sail the skies with Jim.

 

And now there was nothing left. There was no Jim. There was no Bones.

 

Those piercing blue eyes were closed against the world.

 

The empty shell of the CMO of the Enterprise found himself sitting on a chair by his desk, his legs had some how walked away from the body lying in the middle of the sickbay.

 

All was lost. The only thing that remained was the steady build of tears starting to leak through this broken shell of a man that once had loved and lived so wonderfully.

 

Then the tribble moved. A simple purr, a simple jostle of soft fur against the white surface of a desk.

 

Functioning as a machine, only reacting to simple stimulus, the doctor barked out an order.

 

A sudden flash of drunken bar nights, kisses amongst tangled sheets, confessions whispered in the night, a steadying hand on a shoulder, a healing kiss, a world that was once so wonderful flashed behind his eyes.

 

Using only these memories, not being able to rely on Jim’s presence, the doctor tried to rebuild the unit that they had once been functioning as. Because in the end, it wasn’t always saving others, it was saving himself as well.

  

* * *

 

 

“Bones”

 

A single word uttered through cracked lips in the quiet of a sterile hospital room was enough to restore the world that they had built together.

 

It wouldn’t last, but if all they would ever have was this, it would be enough.

 

“Jim” Bones smiled, grasping that hand and feeling as if he lived again.


End file.
